FUCKSHITDAMNCOCKINGPISSPOT! *TITLE CHANGED FOR A REASON!

[El Pinko]

*Yeah, I changed the title to a stream of profanity.

Why?

Because look at the story below dammit!

How FUCKED UP is it that we are SO DAMN ACCUSTOMED to the wealthy sucking every dime out of our pockets, that when a story like this comes out, we are no longer even fazed by it?

Not a single comment on this!?

Is it that DUers are young and pensions mean nothing to them?

I'm not that old at 39, but I still remember a time when people would have been *PISSED* that a bunch of exec fucks OPENLY LOOTED their company's pension plan for PERKS.

Now we just expect it as a matter of course, and in fact, we just accept it without a peep.

What's on TV tonight? Survivor? America's next Top Model?


FUCK!




WSJ: Companies Tap Pension Plans To Fund Executive Benefits


http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121761989739205497.html?mod=googlenews_wsj


Companies Tap Pension Plans To Fund Executive Benefits
Little-Known Move Uses Tax Break Meant For Rank and File
By ELLEN E. SCHULTZ and THEO FRANCIS
August 4, 2008; Page A1

At a time when scores of companies are freezing pensions for their workers, some are quietly converting their pension plans into resources to finance their executives' retirement benefits and pay.

In recent years, companies from Intel Corp. to CenturyTel Inc. collectively have moved hundreds of millions of dollars of obligations for executive benefits into rank-and-file pension plans. This lets companies capture tax breaks intended for pensions of regular workers and use them to pay for executives' supplemental benefits and compensation.


The practice has drawn scant notice. A close examination by The Wall Street Journal shows how it works and reveals that the maneuver, besides being a dubious use of tax law, risks harming regular workers. It can drain assets from pension plans and make them more likely to fail. Now, with the current bear market in stocks weakening many pension plans, this practice could put more in jeopardy.

How many is impossible to tell. Neither the Internal Revenue Service nor other agencies track this maneuver. Employers generally reveal little about it. Some benefits consultants have warned them not to, in order to forestall a backlash by regulators and lower-level workers.






PSST - some of my repug friends have told me that the poor schlubs whose pensions are being sucked dry for executive perks have gotten behind in their credit card payments.

Where's your personal responsibility? No wonder you're not successful like our fine, Ivy-Educated CEOs...

[El Pinko]

1. And one more FUCK for good measure.

NT

[CountAllVotes]

2. it is beyond f'd up!

Maybe young people don't care because they are young. I know how I felt when I was in my 20s and someone suggested I contribute to an IRA. I'd never heard of such a thing and I figured I would not live to be 40 years old, much less 50+ years old.

Luckily, I snapped up the pension money I had as soon as I could snap it up. I don't trust these people regardless of how pristine their image may be. So, I got lucky and grabbed it while others have been waiting hoping to collect a tidy sum the longer they wait.

People don't care because not that many have a pension fund to collect. That is about all I can figure. However, they'll care a lot when they see all of the seemingly disliked baby boomers retire without a nickel to their name. I wonder how many people will end up living in their cars or homeless?

My what a damn sight sad country this has become.

:kick:

[Bettie]

3. I just logged on and saw it....

First, I called my DH to tell him!

It amazes me that they can do such things so openly and no one in power says a word about it!

So, is it in business schools on college campuses that they take out your ethics? Or does that happen on the MBA track?

[JFN1]

4. Sadly, I'm not surprised

Corporate welfare good - human welfare bad. That is the state of our union...

[screembloodymurder]

5. Take a ticket.

I can only handle one outrage at a time.

[Marrah_G]

6. Breathe- this isn't good for your blood pressure

[sinkingfeeling]

7. Pension trusts have been manipulated by corporations for the last 15 years. Read about

IBM and how they used the $54 billion trust to 'up' their bottom line.

[madrchsod]

8. they have looted the pension funds since the 70`s

remember those funds are company funds not employee funds

[On the Road]

9. It Has Come to This:

[earth mom]

10. This is why we can't let the government privatize Social Security!

First off Social Security is NOT broken! But they are all trying to say it is so that Wall Street can get their greedy goddamn hands on all that money!

I don't think that there are going to be many pensions left standing when most people are ready to use them and that's why it's so damn important that there is Social Security at the very least for people to fall back on! My husband has a small pension from another job that is going through problems right now, and I just don't think he will ever see a dime from them. He is now paying into another pension and even though he has a solid job that he plans to retire from in 10 years and his employer is matching a percentage of the funds, I have little faith the money will be there when the time comes. I want him to put the money in gold or something that we can stash away ourselves that no one can lay their greedy hands on, but hubby thinks everything will be fine the way it is. :scared:

Here's what I say: FUCK THE FUCKING THIEVING RAT BASTARDS!!!! :grr:

[The Backlash Cometh]

11. I have been on DU for at least six years trying to tell you all that the top

level of any community are predators over the rest of the community. This kind of exploitation is everywhere. Not just in corporations. People are numb because they have no where to go to tell their stories where they have any confidence that they will find someone that will help them. All I can say is that I'm shocked that they're even listening to us on the blogs, but since we have their attention, then it starts with us.

[babylonsister]

12. This is why I didn't respond...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x3423008

[SpookyCat]

13. I care very much about this but

I'm numb from the anthrax thing. That's what I've been wrapped up in, that and fucking Blackwater in DEA raids here in California.

I assure you it's not apathy about this, just overload.

[redqueen]

14. Yeah... there's already a thread in LBN about this.

And yeah... I'm about ready to just join the fucking Straussians.

If the sheep don't care if they're screwed... well, what the hell?

[Dogtown]

15. Your tactic worked.

And now I am once again shocked by the cynicism of our masters.

[Overseas]

16. One more example of the Republican Way -- transferring wealth back to the super-rich

We are already in the era that has CEOs serving on each others' boards voting themselves huge pay packets and then explaining to the plebes that they have to pay that kind of money to get the best talent.

So when I saw the headline I thought, yeah, more daylight robbery. Not even covert now. The vampires carry on.

We're in the overt criminal regime -- Democrats didn't bother impeaching Bush and Cheney for major crimes against humanity, so all kinds of blatant power grabs are being tried.

[Journeyman]

17. Anyone in a corporate pension plan who believes it's inviolate is willfully blind . . .

those plans have been plundered since at least the mid-'70s (that's when I first heard of it), tapped for everything from R&D cash to debt payment.

I withdrew from the corporate world back when I realized those who run it are no friends of mine and all the wishing in the world wasn't going to change that fact.

Those who stay in the corporate world, hopeful they'll reap its benefits, are taking a crap shoot, so far as I'm concerned. Too many unscrupulous business-folk chasing too few dollars and all the while the worker is kept at a distinct disadvantage. (And lo, this very article here details how the Corpos deny their minions even the useless lube of information.)

So forgive me if my anger doesn't mount to your perceived accepted level, El Pinko, but there are times when anger's trumped by common sense, as it is in my situation, where I've taken the path of watching out for myself without the intercession of a corporate overseer.

[MJJP21]

18. Sounds like

This sounds like an issue that can really resonate with the working class. Most people don't really understand the details of most issues but they do understand when they are being cheated. Barack should grab this one along with a whole bunch of issues that have created a hostile environement for workers rights during the Bush years.

[ColbertWatcher]

19. I am proud to push this higher up the greatest page! Fuckin' great job! n/t